Archive for the ‘Photography’ Tag

It’s that time of year again, when all the world begins turning green — and I’m not talking about how close spring is to officially starting. Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day; and, as you have one red-haired cailín on hand here with a severe case of Celtophilia, and another lass willing to go along with her — well, here we are again. We don’t quite have shamrocks tucked behind our ears, and we won’t be swilling green-dyed beer anytime soon, Second Life or Real Life. (Green beer’s an Americanism, anyways, and barbarous at the best of times.) That doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun with green stylin’.

All the poets I’ve ever read
say lovers, old or new, must meet
in fields of green grass or new-mown hay
places blowing with wildflowers
and warm with sunshine

But you don’t find places like that everywhere and when
You can’t meet your lover in a field of poppies and daisies
when you’re in Michigan in the winter
Two may plight their troth ‘neath an arch of roses
but never in December northlands

If you use image editing software for your Second Life photographic work, such as GIMP, Paint Shop Pro or PhotoShop, you’ve probably encountered references like “masks” and “selections” in the documentation at some point. However, have you ever used them before? I’ll admit, I’ve been slow in learning all the capabilities of my image software, when I could probably produce more luxurious photos without spending a fortune on luxurious costumes. But, for a project I’m working on now, I had an idea for a photo that I needed help on. I wanted to produce a scene with more than two people in it. I wanted a man in the shot — but I didn’t want Conan for this particular photo, as I was going to “meet” him when I got off the ferry boat. What do I do?

It was time to throw out contacts, and also to try new techniques. Jem Sternhall was willing to help, of course; but I don’t know that many men in SL. The solution: use Jemmy twice!

And here’s how you do it, for newbies and those who haven’t tried something like this yet:

The location is The Place — though not that place. (Ten points, a free God’s Blessing, and a trip to the chalk line if you can tell me which place that place is, and why.) And you would not believe what I’ve went through to get these few photos. There were more, but I had no shadows at the first place I tried, and then I forgot to save the gown the first time through, and lost track of a headdress I was wearing — I have headdresses across so many different spots in Inventory, I hate as a librarian and a supposedly “organized” person to admit it. I’ve finally said, “To hell with it,” and I’m going with the basic gown I put together, sans headdresses, staffs, and other magical adornments. But what a dress, and what adornments I do have in here. First of all, the gown is PurpleMoon — need we say more? When Poulet Koenkamp does it, she does it right.

Really, this is the first time I’ve “sat” for something like this since I got married — and it was fun, getting all glammed up and finding somewhere to pose! Working on this blog, I get to learn all sorts of fun things about how to photograph, and I’m picking up dressing tips that I might be able to use in RL too. Although I don’t think I’d be showing up at a job interview wearing this outfit, lol.

This photo is also great, but not what I’d want for what Harper is calling a “formal sitting.” (I think she used to study photography at some point.) But I had the cigarette holder, and I got a chance to try a trick she’s showed me when you want to catch yourself in a certain position. Old timers probably know this, I guess, but us young ones need those old timers to help mentor us through all the tricks there are to work within Second Life.

Anyway, this cigarette holder (a group gift from Anachron, last I knew) doesn’t stay up in your mouth long enough for you to take a puff and exhale the smoke. But you can sort of force the issue here. When you get into position like you want, right-click something and choose Edit. That will freeze you into position without necessarily stopping other scripts from running. I waited until I had the holder in my mouth, clicked Edit, then waited again the couple of seconds for a puff of smoke, and clicked the refresh on Snapshot. And there you have it — I’m sort of taking a “double drag” on my cigarette. (Not healthy, yes, I know. But it’s safe in Second Life. Just don’t start up for real!)

None of us have put anything up for days, so I figured I’d add some of my storyboarding sessions from “Thief In the Night,” the story I’m working on in dribs and drabs. It’s not moving incredibly well in the writing department, partly because of time constraints, partly because of Second Life, and partly because I’ve never written scenes where two women are arguing over a man before. You’ll see below, in the photos for the “confrontation” section. As I think I’ve said before, I like to use SL as a platform to work out scenes and dress my characters visually. It makes it easier to imagine and portray what they look like in any scene when I have an actual visual reference. So far, the dress designers of Second Life haven’t let me down, or I’ve worked something up into a more futuristic appearance (or at least more glitzy).

Warning: From here on, it’s graphics intensive, about 15 photos. I’ve saved them in JPG and shrunk them down, but it will probably still take a bit to load them all, and I’m not really thrilled whenever I use the gallery feature in WordPress (just because I want it all out in the open). So if you have a slow connection, here be dragons from this point on.

Second Life® with Harper, Conan, Jem, Diana and Morgan

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